Trump Is Bad at Being a Tyrant

Donald Trump is a truly dynamic figure. Many Republicans understood after the disasters of 2008 and 2012 that the party needed someone different. Some of us saw early on in the 2016 election that Trump was just the man for the job.

Of course, the Left spewed its usual hate. They attacked his looks; they attacked his kids; they attacked his wife. They also called Trump a “Fascist!” What else is new? They say the same things of any Republican candidate who looks strong enough to win. To the Left, a Trump presidency (as a Romney presidency in 2012 or a McCain presidency in 2008) would have ushered in a tyranny not seen since the early days of Hitler’s Nazi Germany.

To be sure, Trump manipulated the media in much the same way savvy dictators do. Also, he is loud and he loves gold. And he doesn’t tolerate nonsense from the “lying press.” Where I was raised, though, what Trump has been doing with the media is called standing up for yourself. To the media, however, a Republican that stands up for himself is “dangerous.”

If Trump were elected, the Left insisted that he would override Congress and the courts, in order to push his purportedly unpopular agenda through—just like so many strongmen have done throughout history.

So it was with bated breath that so many awaited the inauguration of Donald Trump in January 2017. Would this be the savage end of our republic?

Trump wasted no time pursuing his agenda. He looked to areas where he could effect change rapidly, after realizing that Congress would drag its feet on virtually everything. Trump is a businessman in the truest sense. In his world, the customer is usually right—at least on some level—and a corporate leader must deliver his product as advertised. Thus, President Trump issued a series of executive orders addressing some of his biggest promises on the campaign trail.

It was during this period that the first constitutional challenges to Trump’s “absolute power” arose. The Left was giddy. They were not only going to prove that Trump really was Hitler reincarnate, but they were also going to set the stage for a constitutional crisis that (in their minds), would ultimately lead to Trump’s impeachment.

They just needed Trump to take their bait. The Left waited for President Trump to ignore the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that overturned his initial executive order on immigration. After much back-and-forth in the press (and on Twitter), something unexpected happened. The great tyrant…adhered to the ruling of the court!

After 100 days of the dreaded dictator what can we Trump supporters say to our fellow Americans? Do we apologize? Do we hang our heads in shame? No! We turn to our Leftist friends and say, “you’re welcome.”

The Ninth Circuit demanded of Trump that parts of his executive order be rewritten. Rather than waste more time and energy challenging the ruling, the Trump Administration took its licks, and made the necessary changes. I can’t seem to remember Mao turning to his lawyer, rather than his gun, when his enemies successfully opposed him. Then again, my mind is soup after years of watching “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart.”

Meanwhile, the strongman-in-waiting did something even more unbelievable: He started consulting with Congress on key legislation, such as healthcare reform and tax cuts. Oh, yeah, and the Man-Who-Would-Be-King even offered to work with his political adversaries on the Left to craft a sensible infrastructure bill.

What a tyrant!

Just when you thought Trump’s autocratic tendencies couldn’t get any worse, he did something truly unprecedented for a dictator. Trump backed down from healthcare reform when Congress made it clear that it would be unable to pass the reform as written. Did Stalin ever take “no” for an answer?

It’s unconscionable, I tell you!

Our Caesarean overlord then pivoted in foreign policy and did the very thing that many of his most ardent followers believed he would never do: Trump launched a limited strike on Bashar al-Assad’s forces in Syria. Never in my life have I seen such vitriol directed against a President by his own supporters. The Left thought that Trump and his “fascist” supporters would be cheering on an aggressive foreign policy. They weren’t. In fact, Trump’s base of purported warmongers and white nationalists were apoplectic over his attack on Syria. And do you know how the tyrant responded? He listened to his supporters!

After 100 days of the dreaded dictator what can we Trump supporters say to our fellow Americans? Do we apologize? Do we hang our heads in shame? No! We turn to our Leftist friends and say, “you’re welcome.”

In 100 days, President Trump has returned more power to the people and their elected representatives in government than has any president in the last 70 years. Because of Trump’s unwillingness to ignore the bizarre court rulings against his executive order on immigration; thanks to Trump’s respect for the legislative branch (when, frankly, none should be given to Congress); and thanks to Trump’s willingness to buck his own supporters in the name of doing what’s right in foreign policy, he is helping us make America Great Again.

Rather than acting the part of a dictator, Trump is the ultimate democrat. In a way, Trump is like Napoleon in reverse. When Napoleon rose to power, he legitimized his coronation by crowning himself emperor as the Pope looked on. Thus, Napoleon stood above all. In Trump—the Left’s newest fascist bogeyman—we have a leader who has taken the vast powers of his office and slowly started returning it to where it belongs. Trump is taking the imperial crown from atop his head, cutting it into equal parts, and handing each component to the other two branches of government—all while standing eye-to-eye with the legislative and judicial branches.

Some tyrant.

To my Leftist friends, I say this: If Trump is truly a tyrant as you believe, he’s not very good at it. So, please, quit whining and focus on the future.

Brandon J. Weichert is a contributing editor to American Greatness. A former Republican congressional staffer and national security expert, he also runs "The Weichert Report" (www.theweichertreport.com), an online journal of geopolitics. He holds master's degree in statecraft and national security from the Institute of World Politics in Washington, D.C. He is also an associate member of New College at Oxford University and holds a B.A. in political science from DePaul University. He is currently completing a book on national security space policy due out next year.